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Agentic Coding Is a Trap

larsfaye.com

321–330 of 403 posts

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#321
post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t speak English my early teenage years, and that haven’t stopped me from reading books about programming in my native language. I remember spending hours in bookshops, excited to pick up next book to devour and try out.

I don't believe in victimhood and so didn't want to go here, but since we are comparing notes: English alphabets came into my education at the age of 10. I got my first computer at the age of 21. I began speaking broken English around the age of 23. Proper internet at the age of 25 or so. Not to mention, my native language doesn't have programming books, even today. Of course, an avid reader and Science nerd here. Cu…

Out of curiosity. What is your first/native language?

In my country, english is hardly anyones first language, but its' mandatory in schools so I've never had the experience with having to find knowledge but its gate-kept behind a translation wall.

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know what the coding world is going to look like in 5-10 years, but everything has changed radically in the space of a year from maybe 10% of people using agents to code to probably 95% of people now. In about a YEAR. Last I saw about a week ago, the stats were about 35%. There may be some confusion around this: 1. The absolute number could have remained the same but the sheer volume of vibe-coders who neve…

I don't know what industry you work in or what developers surround you, but the number of developers NOT using agentic coders in my workplace is 0. And I know this is the same in peers workplaces.

> I don't know what industry you work in or what developers surround you,

Why would that matter? I'm not giving you my experience of developers next to me, I'm telling you what I gleaned from published reports.

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s broken and the dev can’t debug it, the business won’t have much of a choice.

There is a lot of space between broken and high quality that won't necessitate any business letting people "learn" on the job.

That’s also true without AI. Engineers want more time to polish and businesses want to ship the 80/20 solution that’s good enough to sell. There's always going to be a tension there regardless of tools.

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#324
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a junior builds something with agents that turns into a mess they can’t debug, that will teach them something. If they care about getting better, they will learn to understand why that happened and how to avoid it next time. It’s not all that different than writing code directly and having it turn into a mess they can’t debug—something we all did when we were learning to program. It is in many ways far easier to w…

Coding by hand is not mere typing symbols into editor that LLMs are now replacing, it’s thinking, abstracting, deciding how to apply your knowledge and experience, searching for information. And of course in the current workplace where there’s often a push from managers to use LLMs as much as possible and to put as much work as possible on yourself, in this churn junior will not get to learn anything besides promptin…

> thinking, abstracting, deciding how to apply your knowledge and experience, searching for information

None of this requires coding by hand. I can do those things better and faster with agents helping me. That incudes unfamiliar areas where I am effectively a junior.

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a common thing doctors complain about. Patients come in, saying they just need a prescription for some drug or other. Off topic, but this must be a USA-specific problem, where prescription drugs are actually marketed at Joe consumer. I think there is maybe one other country where this insane practice is allowed. Nowhere else are patients told to “Ask your doctor about Procrapin for your irritable bowl syndr…

While I'm sure the US has its quirks, this is not a US-only "problem" (not a health expert so I'm not sure if it's even a problem to begin with). I live in Norway and have heard from lots of people (coworkers, friends, acquaintances) that doctors are very reluctant to prescribing anything at all - the running joke is that they'll advise you to "get some fresh air and go for a walk" even if you just broke your leg in…

In The Netherlands, the joke (mainly amongst expats), well actually frustration, is that they just send you home with some paracetamol and come back after two weeks if the complaints don’t stop.

As someone from The Netherlands myself, I’m fairly frustrated with our healthcare system being like this, optimizing for GPs being the gatekeeper to the specialist healthcare system, and as such being super reluctant to actually help us.

To be clear: one of my siblings is a GP and they themselves are frustrated by this as well but can’t change the system. It’s the half privatized / half socialized toxic combination that stings here.

I had to go to another country to get some of my symptoms taken seriously.

To be clear: no amount of “but I’ll pay myself for this study” helps. It’s just not possible. It’s super moronic.

Never mind the fact that specialist healthcare is super distributed, without any central oversight, and you have to behave like your own project manager when you’re being taken care of.

Healthcare is a mess in most of the developed world, probably because it’s incredibly expensive.

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#326
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the AI coding is most likely to go the way of self-driving: always around the corner.

Self driving is not around the corner. I sit in the back seat of an AI driven car on a daily basis. There is no living being sitting on the front seat and that car goes on the freeway. This is a regular and very common thing where I live:

Powered by chaps in Phillipinnes. Your "regular and very common" thing is close to calling railoroads self-driving.

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#327
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was not a IQ decline observed for the first time recently? Also, no one gets smarter by outsourcing thinking.

> Also, no one gets smarter by outsourcing thinking. Thinking is happening at a higher level. Humans are adepts at abstraction, and they are always capable of looking under the hood when needed. We've never had so much societal capability as now. And that's only going to accelerate. Smart people will use these tools effectively. Don't be so bearish on human ingenuity. Think of these tools as bullshit / busy work remo…

abstraction needs to be built on something. If there is little in your brain, there is little you can do with it.

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe in victimhood and so didn't want to go here, but since we are comparing notes: English alphabets came into my education at the age of 10. I got my first computer at the age of 21. I began speaking broken English around the age of 23. Proper internet at the age of 25 or so. Not to mention, my native language doesn't have programming books, even today. Of course, an avid reader and Science nerd here. Cu…

Out of curiosity. What is your first/native language? In my country, english is hardly anyones first language, but its' mandatory in schools so I've never had the experience with having to find knowledge but its gate-kept behind a translation wall.

My native language is Gujarati. Done my schooling and college in Gujarati too.

Absolutely, I understand what you're saying.

One of the things people miss out, in most of the discussions is that they think "if you were really serious, you would have figured it out". I agree with that in most instances but language and skill acquisition is a complex process as everyone knows.

English being the de-facto reservoir of programming knowledge and applications, it takes substantial amount of time and effort to cross the threshold of understanding and transference.

In any case, I'm an eternal optimist and I believe in action. It was a great experience listening to people's opinion here and I was kind of shocked to find that some of them are so siloed in their chambers, that's interesting nonetheless.

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attention Please Everyone You're looking at a specimen of one of the most rattled species nowadays. It is so fun finding them under these articles. Their last attempts at finding inner-validation. What a waste.

Hey man we all have our own skill levels and challenges and do all sorts of different work. I don't want to shit on what you've done but you're coming in WAY too hot for how trivial your work is and how inflated your description of it is. You're demanding humbleness while being extremely proud. Check yourself.

Thanks for the heads-up. Appreciate that.

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeating what I said on the previous comment: --- Now you want to have a "discourse"? No thanks. Honestly, I want you to live with your assumptions and beliefs. No more goodwill from my side to your username.

It seems you are unusually embarrassed to admit being nothing more than a vibe-coder. Why is this? Are you not proud that you can produce products without possessing any skill?

Dude, pls stop. You're making me laugh. Seriously.

This is my last response to you. Expended your credits.

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